


Never

by teenagegothintegrity (not_offended)



Category: Lost Boys (1987), Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Vampire Alan, Vampire Michael, Vampires, also I just really really like the idea of Star and Sam growing close, like none of the folks listed die, the major character death isn't like Major, theres a fair bit of angst here, this is very Sam-centric which is not at all what it originally was supposed to be, this really doesn't keep up with the tribe or the thirst like at all, this really wasn't supposed to be a whole thing on its own lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:48:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7206164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_offended/pseuds/teenagegothintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He never says it, because it would be a lie."</p><p>What if everything went wrong after that night? They won, but at what cost? Things aren't the same; they'll never be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never

Afterwards, all Lucy wants is to protect her boys. She never wants them out at night, and she doesn't let them go anywhere alone. She worries about Edgar and Alan; she knows their parents don't. She makes sure they know that they're always welcome to stay with the Emersons whenever they want. She doesn't let Sam sleep over there very often because she's always worried that he won't come home. If she isn't there, anything could happen to him.

She never thinks that maybe it wouldn't matter if she was there. ~~It hadn't mattered then, either.~~

Michael still goes out at night, no matter how often Lucy asks him not to. He still stalks the boardwalk, looking for cheap thrills. He still rides his bike down by Hudson's Bluff, whooping and hollering, and sometimes he hears other voices join him and other times he doesn't. He still wears his leather jacket, and he still wears the earring. He feels like he's going nuts from Lucy's helicopter parenting, like he's going to snap if he has to hear her ask if he's alright one more time, because no, he's not al-fucking-right. He'll probably never be alright again. And so one night he goes out on David's bike, retrieving it from where he'd hidden it in the woods half a mile from the house, and doesn't come back. It's been about 6 months since that night with Max.

He never tells them why. Sam knows anyway.

At that point, Star has already left. Laddie went back to his real family after it was all over, but wasn't happy there. Too much had happened. He didn't belong with the other kids at school, with his parents that worried too much and laughed too little and didn't let go him to the boardwalk with Star. He was too wild; they all were, and neither he nor Star could be contained by Santa Carla anymore. So 4 months later, they left on Dwayne's bike in the middle of the night. It had been kept in good condition near the cave, along with Paul and Marko's. They didn't know where David's was, but Star guessed that Michael did.

She never asks him, though. He never tells her.

Alan disappears a week after graduating high school. He goes to the store one night to pick up some groceries and just never comes back. Edgar goes ballistic, obviously. He's convinced that vampires took him, and drags Sam on a hitchhiking trip around California trying to find him. Grandpa finds them a week into it and brings them home. Edgar leaves again to look for his brother, alone this time. Sam wonders, if Alan isn't dead, maybe he doesn't want to be found.

Edgar doesn't come back for a long time. He doesn't call, doesn't know about the overdose that takes his father in mid-August, doesn't hear his mother cry herself to sleep, exhausted from grief and withdrawal, and ask Sam every single day if he's heard from her boys, doesn't comfort Sam after his grandfather's heart attack, doesn't come to the funeral. Sam decides that Edgar and Alan are probably dead or worse after the first seven months. He doesn't know why he thinks it all of a sudden, but one day in late January he's just sitting at the kitchen table doing math homework and he suddenly realizes how long they've been gone and that he'll most likely never see either of them again.

After a year and 3 months, Edgar arrives in town on the back of Star's bike.

Sam and Star have a long conversation that night, while Edgar sleeps upstairs in Sam's bed. She's been all over the country with Laddie, teaching him as best she can, and twice they've stayed in the same place long enough for him to go to school for a couple months at a time. Laddie is 14 now, and nearly as tall as she is, Star tells him with a little laugh. She shows him a picture of the boy she keeps in a locket around her neck, and he sees that Laddie is in fact growing up. His face still has a bit of baby fat, but his eyes are a little sharper, his smile a little more natural looking, his hair far past his now broader shoulders.

Star looks just as untamed as she always did, hair loose and wild, smile bright, skirts swishing as she walks, bracelets jangling and sandals loudly slapping the ground. Her laughs are more real than he remembers them, coming from the heart. Her words flow a lot smoother than they used to, because they're also a lot truer than they used to be. When she tells him that she and Laddie are happy, he believes her.

She looks older, but younger at the same time. Free.

He tells her about Mike, about his studies, about his job, about the cute boy that comes in the shop sometimes. He tells her about how his mom hasn't been eating much lately; she's lost so much weight, she's swimming in her old clothes. He's started sleeping in her room with her most nights, just because he's afraid she might not wake up if he doesn't.

He never tells her that he missed her. He doesn't have to.

He asks her if she regrets what they did back then. She smiles and tells him that she regrets it every single day. She and Laddie still have nightmares, waking up with the names of their brothers on their lips.

"You'll always be my brother," she tells him with the sunrise. She leaves as its rays splay across the land, painting the earth red. Sam feels like it's a promise.

Edgar's 18 when Star brings him back. Sam is 17 and has graduated, and is working at the comic shop to help his presumed dead friends' mother out. He's also taking classes at a nearby school. He hunts in Luna Bay on weekends and is hot on the trail of a pack of werewolves when Ed comes home. He drops everything to support his friend, skipping most of his classes for a full week before Edgar tells him not to throw everything away for him.

Edgar is a wreck, physically and mentally. He has a broken arm and some cracked ribs; his eyes are empty. He's pale and thin, and the dark circles under his eyes are so much more pronounced then they were before. He refuses to tell anyone what happened to him, but he does say that Alan isn't coming home, not now, not ever. Or, they should hope not ever. Edgar retreats back to his mother's house, spending weeks at a time without going outside. His room is filled with old books that Sam has never seen before, some written in a language he didn't know Edgar could speak.

Whenever Sam tries to ask about Alan, Edgar shuts down. He'll find any excuse to go elsewhere, change the subject, or just stop talking completely. Eventually, Sam changes his tactics. He asks him about where he went, but Edgar never gives him a straight answer. "Spent some time inland. Took out some vamps. Not the right ones..." he says once. "Lot of bloodsuckers in the east," he mentions another day. Sam wishes there was a shrink in the world Edgar could talk to without getting carted off to the loony bin.

He never knows what happened to Alan. He doesn't know if he wants to.

Mike is still gone, but he calls every week or so, and he visits every few months. He's rarely awake during the day when he comes home in early July, and Sam's pretty sure he knows what has happened to his brother, but he can't bring himself to care because at least Mike still comes back.

Until one night, three weeks after Edgar returns, when Sam gets a call. Mike just keeps saying he's sorry, and finally Sam tells him to shut the fuck up and let him know what's going on.

"I didn't want to, Sammy, I-... Well, that's a lie, isn't it? If I really didn't want to, there's plenty I could've done to stop it." At this point, he lets out a sharp bark of a laugh that has Sam flinching away from the phone. He wants to scream, because this is it, Mike has finally done it, but instead he quietly asks if he's ever going to see him again.

"Sam." Michael sighs, deep and hurting, and there is a long pause before he says anything else. "I'm in New York right now. It'll take me a bit to get there. It'd be quicker to fly, but I don't have anywhere to keep my bike. I'll take you with me this time, ok? You know I'll always come back for you, no matter what happens. You'll like it; I'll show you. You'll love flying, Sammy." He sounds desperate.

Sam suppresses a shiver and shakes his head, even though he knows Mike can't see him. "No, Mike, I can't. You know I'm always happy to see you and have you home and everything, but not like that. I can't just leave. What about mom? What about Edgar? He's back. They need me. I'm sorry, Mike, but they're family too." He's aware of the fact that he didn't say he doesn't want that, doesn't want to be like that, doesn't want to own the night with his brother at his side.

He never says it, because it would be a lie.

"You'll always be my brother," Mike tells him, and hangs up, leaving him clutching the phone with white knuckles. Sam feels like it's a threat.

He never tells anyone about the call.

* * *

 Six years later, after his mother has given in to the cancer, after Edgar has left town to live in a shitty little trailer out in the middle of nowhere, after Sam has finished college and met a girl and gotten married and has a two year old son and a daughter on the way, that's when Alan comes looking for him.

It's not a momentous occasion, it's not a dramatic appearance. Sam's out on the boardwalk with his wife and son one night in early June. They don't live in Santa Carla anymore, but are in the area and stop by for old time's sake. It feels like the place they need to be: a cacophony of happy screams and carnival music, flashing lights, the scent of hot dogs and fried dough and popcorn thick in the air. He's holding some cotton candy and laughing as little baby Chris bounces in his mother's arms and reaches for pieces of the sugary treat. He's thinking about going to visit Edgar for his friend's birthday this weekend, when he feels eyes on him. He looks away from his smiling wife to see _him_ leaning against the wall of a taco stand about 20 feet away.

He's different. He's not the 18 year old he was when he disappeared; he's gotten a little older. Not as much as Sam. He's not the 26 year old he should be. He looks younger than Sam, and he's overcome with how wrong that feels, to be older than Alan. At the same time, though, there's a darkness in Alan that makes him so much older than he should be. He has the eyes of a war veteran, someone who has seen the worst things and will never be the same because of them. His hair is longer than Sam remembers, nearly to his shoulders. He has the distant thought of _what is it with vampires and long hair?_

Sam realizes a few things from Alan's appearance alone: first and foremost, his friend is a full vampire. He has that predatory air to him that Sam recognizes from other vampires he's fought, that cutting edge to his eyes and teeth, the teeth that Sam gets a good look at when Alan grins at him. Alan's never grinned like that.

Second, Alan held out for awhile. He hadn't killed immediately after being turned. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten older. He would've still been a kid. He held on for at least a couple years, something Sam hasn't even thought possible until this very moment.

Third, he's here for him. He's here to take him from his family, make him part of a new one. He's here to steal Chris' father, his unborn daughter's father, his beautiful wife's husband.

The final thing Sam learns just from seeing Alan standing there, watching him with that awful, awful grin, is that he isn't nearly as happy with his life as he thought he was. The first thing he feels when he spots Alan isn't fear, like it should be, but relief. Relief that his friend isn't dead, isn't lying in a shallow grave somewhere by the side of the road, isn't a bunch of ashes floating on the breeze. Relief that his friend has come for him, hasn't left him in the dust even after all these years. Relief that despite everything, despite not seeing him for seven years, despite being an undead monster, despite _everything_ , Alan still wants him.

There's a tinge of excitement beneath it all. Alan is here for _him_. Alan is going to do what Michael didn't years ago. Sam is going to leave, like he might've done with Michael once upon a time. But he hasn't heard from Mike in over two years now, not since Chris was born and Michael came to see him. He didn't come alone; he came with the bleach blond asshole that had started this whole mess all those years ago. He came with someone that Sam wouldn't trust within a hundred miles of his family, and Sam told him so.

It was the first fight they'd had since Michael left. There'd been yelling, a lamp and a leg were smashed, and Michael and David had sped off into the night, leaving Sam injured and alone. He still walks with a limp.

He misses his brother.

All of these thoughts are swirling in Sam's head, he wants to go to Alan and introduce him to his wife, his son, his life. He wants to leave his family, his life behind, and own the night with Alan and Edgar. He doesn't know what he wants. He knows he wants Alan.

"Diane," he murmurs to his wife, reaching over to tousle his son's dark hair with a small smile. "Di, there's someone I want you to meet."

He looks up, locks eyes with Alan, his friend, his enemy, his brother, and nods.

Alan's grin becomes less maniacal, less like he's going to eat someone right then and there, and more the familiar grimace that Sam knows to truly be an expression of happiness.

"No matter what happens from here on out," Sam says when Alan joins them. "You'll always be my brother." He feels like it's a threat and a promise. Diane's grip on Chris tightens, as do her fingers entwined with Sam's. She knows who Alan is. She knows what Alan is. She doesn't know what he wants, exactly, but she knows what Sam wants. She's always known, ever since Michael came when Chris was born, ever since Sam started having to choose between his families. Ever since she realized which one he would choose some day.

She blinks away tears and lets go of Sam's hand to shake Alan's. "It's nice to meet you, Alan Frog. I've heard so much about you. I'm Diane, and this is our son, Christopher Alan Emerson." She looks down and rubs her swollen belly. "And this is Nicole Lucille Emerson."

Sam doesn't think he's ever seen Alan smile so much.

**Author's Note:**

> this was just supposed to be some notes on what might've happened afterwards and now it's a full story of over 2,000 words wtf


End file.
